ON
THE DAY of closing statements, March 15, 2000, Mr Justice
Gray (right) invited Mr Irving to submit to him a written
response on "concessions" which the Defence alleged he had
made during the trial. Since Mr Rampton had quite improperly
interrupted his closing speech to make further points (see
transcript,
Day 32),
and had submitted a further document to the Judge after
closing speeches, Mr Irving submitted this list of points
which he apprehended the Court had perhaps failed to grasp.
By letter written after handing down his Judgment on April
12, 2000, the Clerk to Mr Justice Gray confirmed that this
document had been received. The Judge took into account
however only one of the points it contains.

Claimant's Response to
the Defendants' Closing Statements

The Defendants' Closing Statements were filed with the
Court and served on the Claimant on March 15, and on
subsequent dates up to March 21, 2000.

[Point at magic
link to open Rampton's submission of March 17, 2000 in a
separate window.]

5. (i) Defendant's
Historiographical Criticisms of Claimant

5(i)(a) Hitler Trial 1924

Para 2.1-2.4: In describing certain events
following the Beerhall Putsch of November 1923, namely
Hitler's expulsion of a Nazi ex-army lieutenant from the
Party for an anti-Jewish excess committed that night, my
source was Policeman Hoffmann. I read most of his testimony,
but not enough to learn of his alleged political bias. I do
not consider that the fact of his Party membership made him
necessarily a perjurer in the 1924 Hitler Trial. Hitler was
an unimportant agitator, bound for jail at that time.
Hoffmann was a police sergeant, testifying on oath and
therefore seemed credible to me.

Para 4.2.: In writing books for the general reader
and a wider public than is attained by e.g. the expert
witnesses in this case, I agree that I used vocabulary like
requisitioning in the way that GIs would talk about
liberating wristwatches from Nazi prisoners of war. My
readers will have got the point.

5(i)(b): Reichskristallnacht

Para 4.3: I do not concede any error over
depicting relations between Hitler and Goebbels that night.
The diaries cannot be slavishly followed, as the defendants
have, for the reasons I stated I my closing speech
(transcript, Day 32, at page 88): "The Goebbels diary is
sometimes a very deceitful document; it must be recognized
as such and treated very gingerly indeed. It is the diary of
a liar, a propagandist. The fact that it was evidently
written up not one, but two or even three days later, after
the Kristallnacht episode, calls for additional caution in
relying on it for chronology and content. It was furthermore
in Goebbels' interest to maintain that he had been acting at
all material times on Hitler's orders, although those in the
know (Rosenberg, Von Hassell, Groscurth, Himmler,
Ribbentrop, and Hitler's adjutants Wolff, Brückner,
Below, Wiedemann, all of whose evidence was in the Court
Bundle) clearly recognised that this was untrue.

Para. 4.3: I translated zurückziehen as "hold
back", not "withdraw". Hold back is a possible translation,
but I concede that the correct purport would better have
been given by "pull back". In 1995 I published the entire
1938 Goebbels diary in the original German, which would have
been counter-productive if my translation was deliberately
misleading.

Para. 4.5: If I accept that Hitler and Himmler
were seen in conversation, "close" or otherwise, on the
evening of the Reichskristallnacht; and if I accept that
Heinrich Müller issued a telegram some hours later, at
11:55 p.m. - this is not a concession that I accept that a
causal link has been demonstrated between these two facts,
particularly in view of the evidence of Hitler's anger upon
learning of the extent of the outrages.

Himmler expressed his fury afterwards that Goebbels had
played fast and loose with his police units, issuing orders
directly to them which had led to the outrages. (Source:
Groscurth diary, December 29, 1938: Institut für
Zeitgeschichte, Tagebücher eines Abwehroffiziers
1938-1940 (Stuttgart 1970)). Himmler noted in a
memorandum:

"When I asked the Führer about it, I had
the impression that he did not know anything about these
events."

Source: Himmler memorandum, cited by Raul Hilberg, The
Destruction of the European Jews (New York, 1973);
quoted in GOEBBELS. MASTERMIND OF THE THIRD REICH (page 281;
and n73, page 614).

Para. 4.6: I do not concede that the order
referred to, the order allegedly received from
Gruppenführer Fust, was available to me when I wrote my
books. As is indicated by the fact that I misspelt the man's
name as Lust, I never saw it. As shown by my account on
para. 4 of page 275 of Goebbels. Mastermind of the Third
Reich I relied on sources at Fust's level including among
others the diary of Lutze, his superior, which was not
available to Evans and the experts.

Para. 4.7: I do not concede that even if the
message referred to (Böhmcker) had been known to me,
including it would have added to what my readers knew from
other documents I quoted. I had already made plain that
Hitler had initially ordered the police "held back" in
incidents like this. If I had quoted every such telegram it
would have generated pages of sludge and an unreadable
book.

Para 5.2: As conceded in my closing statement
(Day
32, pages 82f) I concede that (a) I gave the wrong
reference number for the 1:20 a.m. telegram issued by
Heydrich on Kristallnacht; and (b) I gave the wrong weight
to its content.

However I do not concede that the document can properly
be construed as being based on an explicit order from Hitler
via Himmler to Heydrich, as to the nation-wide atrocities
that developed during the night. My answers under
cross-examination made this plain.

IRVING: "They are not talking about an immense
nation-wide pogrom which was subsequently developed
overnight. At present they are talking just about a
punitive measure from which the police were to be
withdrawn. Adolf Hitler certainly gave instructions for
that to be allowed, as I make quite plain in the Goebbels
book." (Day
12, page 113)

Para 6.4: The Hess Anordnung
of 2:56 a.m. I do not concede that the acts of arson which
were to be halted were limited on Hitler's orders solely to
German property and shops [Geschäfte] as Mr
Rampton argues. At 3:45 a.m. that same night the following
telegram was issued by the Gestapo Section II, signed "p.p.
Bartz":

"The following orders of the chief of security police
[Heydrich]are to be executed urgently and
immediately:

1.) according to the latest orders in accord with the
Political Leaders all kinds of arson are to
hindered;

2.) all orders issued and yet to be issued in this
affair are to be stamped SECRET,

3.) without exception every Gestapo head office and
office is to submit two reports on the execution of the
Aktionen and their effects, particularly about egregious
episodes, to the Gestapo section II. The first report
must be submitted by this morning November 10 at 5 a.m.
at the latest, the second report by seven a.m. this
morning at the latest to the Gestapo HQ,

In other words Heydrich, who we are informed by Mr
Rampton in para. 5.3 was acting at all material times on
Hitler's direct orders, is seen clearly ordering a halt to
ALL acts of arson, not just against German property and
shops.

This telegram is contained on page 157, n277, of the
Institut für Zeitgeschichte publication,
Tagebücher eines Abwehroffiziers 1938-1940
(Stuttgart 1970), which was a source used when I wrote
my books, and which was disclosed by name to the defendants
in my Discovery. Since I specifically referenced this
telegram in note 49 of GOEBBELS. MASTERMIND OF THE THIRD
REICH, at page 613, it is staggeringly dishonest of the
Defendants to pretend that this telegram does not exist. It
clearly destroys their entire argument.

Para 6.4(ii) It is immaterial that the Party Court
summary of messages did not include the phrase oder
dergleichen ("or suchlike"). The original message on the
headed paper of Hess's office, on which I relied, did. This
document is No. 6 in my Discovery. It is referenced at note
49 of GOEBBELS. MASTERMIND OF THE THIRD REICH,at page 613.
The source reference offered by Mr Rampton ("note 37 page
613") is clearly another mistake of his.

Page 6.6 The concession as set out is not made. I
draw His Lordship's attention to the last paragraph of page
275 of GOEBBELS. MASTERMIND OF THE THIRD REICH. This sets
out the substantive content of the findings of the Party
Court. As for Mr Rampton's assertion, that I conceded that
Goebbels would not have dared to make such an assertion if
it were not true, that Hitler had approved the
demonstrations, here is the passage of transcript relied on
(Day
12, page 89, lines 9-13):

RAMPTON: - he [Goebbels] is not likely to lie
to the Alten Rathaus gathering of old party comrades, is
he? He is representing to them what he and Hitler have
been discussing and what Hitler has told him before that
dinner which Hitler did not attend, is he not?

IRVING: Yes.

I was merely acknowledging the question, not
substantively answering it. Mr Rampton and the Court are
well aware from my books that my position (like that of the
Party Court) has always been that Goebbels bore the sole
responsibility for the events that night, and that Hitler's
share was limited to police non intervention.

5(i)(c) Aftermath of Reichskristallnacht.

Para. 2.3. This material (the aims of the Party
Court investigation and the types of cases) is clearly
relevant to an in-depth multi-chapter study of the
Reichskristallnacht; it is far too detailed for a biography
of a minister. There were several Party Court sessions and
reports; Prof. Evans has quoted only one.

Para. 2.4(v): I made my position plain: First, the
"jolly Party members, " etc. - the wording is Mr Rampton's,
not mine, despite the impression he gives; second, and the
Court will not attach over much importance to "yes's" wrung
out of a witness under fierce cross-examination unless they
are clearly born out as affirmations by admissions of
substance in the following phrases and sentences, which is
not the case here.

Para. 2.5: That Hess did on December 19, 1938
order the courts to delve and turn over the culprits for
prosecution is clear from the source document I quoted. This
is not challenged. What the Supreme Party Court actually
decided, weeks or months later (February 13, 1939; at
2.4(i)) should happen to the culprits is beyond the outer
rim of this book's purview. In my books I gave many examples
of the crimes committed against persons and property during
the night.

5(i)(d) Shootings of Jews in the East

I have always maintained that Hitler issued orders,
including the Commissar Order and other similar orders
before the Russian campaign, which made provision for
shooting Russian Jews under various pretexts. On Day 2, at
page 258, I state under cross-examination: "I can make your
life easier, Mr Rampton, by saying that Adolf Hitler was
quite satisfied, I think, with the Einsatzgruppen operations
on the Eastern Front in so far as they had the character of
security operations. . . Subsequently of course the security
operations were then umbrella'd out to include the
liquidation of Jews, who were considered to be fair
game."

This contrasts very strongly with the staggeringly
dishonest assertion by Mr Rampton (at para 1.1, item 6)
based on a single line only a few lines before the above
quotation, which is wrongly used to make me appear to say
almost the opposite.

Para. 1.2:

(i) The Court will recall that I have read out
documents like the Bruns
Report which I was the first to find and publicise
(inter alia in HITLER'S WAR, 1991, at page 20) on
countless occasions. This alone destroys the absurd
suggestion that I was forced to make this "concession" by
Mr Rampton's brilliant advocacy.

(ii) The Commissar and similar Orders have never been
denied, but rather asserted in my books including
HITLER'S WAR 1977 and 1991 editions.

(iii) That Hitler's authority was behind the orders in
(ii) is also never denied, though there is no proof that
he was conscious of the scale of shootings.

Para 1.3: It is not conceded that the Müller
order of August 1, 1941 was designed to ensure that Hitler
was informed of the homicidal operations of the
Einsatzgruppen; the internal evidence indicates that it
referred to their Intelligence gathering operations against
the Communist party and Soviet administrations ("photos,
posters, placards, documents"). No documents have been shown
as having been sent in to Müller at the Gestapo Amt IV
headquarters in Berlin from the Einsatzgruppen in response
to this order, nor any being sent by him to Hitler in
consequence of this order either.

It is not conceded that any of the Ereignismeldungen were
shown to Hitler. There is no proof whatsoever that they
were. One only (1) was addressed to the Party Chancellery,
which was based in Munich, with a liaison office in Berlin;
Hitler however was in East Prussia.

It is conceded that Report
[Meldung] 51 was submitted [vorgelegt]
to Hitler. It is not conceded that it was read by Hitler. As
I stated under cross-examination on Day 2, page 264:
"Firstly, I accept the document was in all probability shown
to Hitler. Secondly, I think in all probability he paid no
attention to it. The reason being the date. This is the
height of the Stalingrad crisis.[...]" Other
Meldungen of the same period had to be shown to him more
than once, which indicated he had not read them on the first
occasion. This item is marked as being vorgelegt only
once.

Para 1.4:

(i) It is not conceded that I was aware of the
Müller letter [August 1,
1941] from the Gerald Fleming book (or that I
would have given it great weight if I had been). I read
the first few pages of the book when the author gave it
to me. I later read the pages relating to the Bruns
document when I wanted to check the relevant names. The
Müller document was not referred to in those
sections that I read.

(ii) The Ereignismeldungen are in the archives of the
Federal German Foreign Ministry. I gave complete
disclosure of my research files to the defendants, and
they found no reference to any notes or copies made by me
from those documents. I became familiar with them only
during preparation for this trial. (The quotations from
the Holmes Show in New Zealand, about the
machine-gunnings of "tens of thousands at a time" into
pits, are incidentally hard to reconcile with the
allegation that I deny that such things happened.)

(iii) The footnote in HITLER'S WAR (1991) at page 817
quotes the fact of the report and the figure it contains,
- 363,211 deaths - and gives a precise reference to
enable others to obtain the full report. Again, it is
hard to reconcile this with the allegation that I deny
that such things happened.

Para: 1.5: I have retreated from nothing; my
position remains as set out in the paper, which contains no
misleading or disingenuous statements.

Section 2 Testimony of General Walter Bruns.

Para. 2.1 When HITLER'S WAR was first completed in
1974 I had not yet obtained the
Bruns report. It is an untruth for Mr Rampton to state
that "in HITLER'S WAR there is no reference to the testimony
of General Bruns." On page 20 of the 1991 edition a six-line
footnote recalls this "most spine chilling account of the
plundering and methodical mass murder of these Jews at
Riga", and gives the complete archival reference to enable
the lazier scholars to go and dig it out themselves. This
was of course after the 1988 "denial" threshold.

Para. 2.1 On GOEBBELS. MASTERMIND OF THE THIRD
REICH Mr Rampton is equally misleading. The report by the
"army colonel" (i.e. Bruns) is clearly quoted at length
towards the bottom of page 379 of the book, as to the
shooting of the trainload of Jews from Berlin; there is also
a ten-line footnote identifying the source on page 645. This
footnote No. 43 also gives several other sources for these
massacres of Berlin Jews.

Para 2.5 See above under 5(i)(d). The Bruns Report
is a hearsay account in April 1945 of a December 1941
conversation, in which the 23-year old SS gangster Altemeyer
is said to have related to him what he alleges he has been
ordered by (unnamed) superiors. It does not tally with (a)
what subsequently happened (the subsequent shootings were
not carried out any "more discreetly") (b) the British
decodes of Himmler's radio
message ("all such arbitrary actions will be severely
punished in future"). It is therefore proper to discount the
unreliable portion of Bruns's recollection. And note that I
have posted the whole document in both German and English on
my website for the last three years.

Para. 2.8(viii) See above under 5(i)(d). Hitler's
guidelines March 1941 which permitted for the killing of the
Jews and Bolsheviks are set out in HITLER'S WAR 1991 pages
345-6.

Para 3.4: Schulz-DuBois letter: I refer to my very
full statement in my Closing Statement, Day
32 at page 90f: "As I stated under cross-examination, I
did not see the Schulz-Dubois document when I wrote my books
and I have not seen it since; having now read what Prof.
Gerald Fleming tells us about it, I confess that I would be
unlikely to attach the same importance as does learned
counsel for the Defendants, to what the famously anti-Nazi
Abwehr Chief Wilhelm Canaris allegedly told Lieutenant
Schulz-Dubois of Hitler's reaction. The British decodes of
the SS signals, to which I introduced the Court, and the
subsequent events (the actual cessation for many months of
the liquidation of German Jews) in my submission speak
louder.

5(i)(e) Hitler's views on the Jewish Question

(7) It is clear from the text in GOEBBELS.
MASTERMIND OF THE THIRD REICH at page 377 that what Hitler
was neither consulted nor informed about was the ultimate
fate of the Jews - not their deportation.

(8) Mr Rampton quotes Himmler's note to
Gauleiter Greiser of September 18, 1941 about
transporting Jews from the Old Reich and Protectorate. He
implies that I concealed this. I quoted it in HITLER'S WAR
(1977) page 326, in HITLER'S WAR (1991) page 426; I quote a
virtually identical statement made by Hitler himself, not
Himmler, on October 6, 1941 [see page enclosed]. Any
suggestion that I seke to conceal Hitler's role in these
deportations is not only wrong: I give better evidence for
it thatn Mr Ram,pton and Prof. Evans do: I quote Hitler, not
Himmler.

(10) Hitler's Table Talk, October 25, 1941: I
refer to the full treatment of this issue given under
cross-examination and in my closing statement on Day 32 at
pages 90f.

5(i)(f) Expulsion of the Jews from Berlin,
1941

(9) It is a grotesque untruth for Mr Rampton to state
that in the witness box on Day 2, at pages 289-290 (or
anywhere else) I stated that I had put an "e" on to the end
of the word Judentransport.
This he describes (para. 10) as "another of P's silly, short
term lies". I have never put an "e" on the end of
Judentransport, in any of my books, nor did I so agree under
cross-examination, although he repeatedly cross-examined me
as though I had.

There was thus never any misreading of the words
"Judentransport aus Berlin." As stated in para. 10, I
correctly transcribed it on January 23, 1974 (see my letter
to Dr Kabermann) which was about the same time as I was
writing the book. There was accordingly never any
"volte-face" by me (para. 11) on Day 3, pages 330-332.

I have always argued, and did so in my closing statement
(Day 32, page 90), that a wholly legitimate translation of
Transport is transportation (which is the primary
meaning given by my Cassell's dictionary). This also
disposes of Mr Rampton's accusations of "inconsistent and
unconvincing explanations for [my] falsification
[which] was deliberate" rendered in his para.
12.

(13) One would have to be monumentally obtuse not to
accept that if a phone
conversation takes place from Hitler's bunker at the
Wolf's Lair, between Himmler (who has only just arrived
there) and Heydrich, with a most noteworthy content (namely,
not to liquidate a trainload of Berlin Jews), there is a
direct connection between the fact that Himmler has waited
until arriving at Hitler's bunker to make it.